The Hypersomniac
by Willy Wonka is Wonking
Summary: I've always liked sleeping. I've never had a dream and to me the idea of one is baffling. No, to me sleep is like death- but with none of the commitment. SI OC Lets see where this goes.
1. T

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

I've always liked sleeping. I've never had a dream before, the idea of one was baffling to me. No; to me, sleep was a bit like death, without the commitment. A state of not-being where you're completely unaware but still know upon waking that time has passed.  
Such a peculiar feeling.

To me sleeping and death are so closely entwined it seems to only make sense that I would slip into death while still asleep. That's why if anyone asked me what death was like I honestly wouldn't be able to tell them; really, I was asleep the entire time.

So it was when I first became aware of my undeveloped eyes looking out into what seemed to be infinite darkness I realized that I had been asleep for quite a very long time. It didn't escape me that something was not quite right, that the blackness was far too consuming, that I couldn't quite grasp my thoughts,only impressions; but sleep was far too close and the warmth was all too comforting to be real.

I'll spare you the details of my birth.

It's enough to say that I was awake.

The woman who birthed me was dead by the time I woke. I opened my eyes, unable to see anything but indistinguishable blurs, I reached out blindly with fingers that felt like lead only to brush on cool, sterile plastic. I was in an incubator; it was my home for too long. In the end all my memories of that first half year where mix of confusion and sleep.

When that man first took me 'home' I was completely swathed in heavy blankets making it even more difficult to move my neck that usual. My already sluggish limbs where pinned under the rough blue materiel. He held me to his chest, my head tucked protectively under the curve of his collarbone blocking out almost all of my vision, under my mop of black hair I could see the sky a satisfyingly dark blue. I fell asleep.

That man, he was an odd mix.  
He could be so gentle; he would sing to me in an odd language that sounded vaguely familiar and ruffle my hair affectionately. But at times he seemed so unease with everything around him. He would hold me protectively in an almost painful embrace at times or fly into a temper where he would inevitably run from the house and be gone for hours at a time.  
I heard him weeping her name behind closed doors once. 'Yuhi'. He must have loved that woman, Yuhi.

It was at nine months old that I spoke my first sentence.

Languages had always been something of a forte of mine but it was difficult to pick up appropriate vocabulary when the only thing I was regularly exposed to was his cooing and nursery rhymes.

"Dad." I said, I didn't know his name (and he just kept on pointing to himself with a lopsided smile drawing out the world- I could take the hint) "I'm hungry."

So it wasn't much in ways of a first sentence. He dropped the bowl he was in the process of cleaning. Fortunately it landed in the sink, but I heard it smash into pieces all the same. It probably didn't help that my first sentence was also me first worlds.

"Ah, of course Hikage." He said with a smile. He put down the cloth and came over to where I was sitting. "What do you want to eat?"

"Rice." I said, mostly because it was the only thing I could remember how to say, but rice is rice is rice all the same. Needless to say I was not expecting him to pick me up in a bone squeezing hug a second later.

"Dad!" I squealed, squirming.

He smiled at me; the meaning of what he said next was completely lost on me but it was said with a tone of endearment. So rather than pout I simply deflated as I lent my head against his shoulder. He ruffled my hair as he began cooking with one hand.

Embarrassingly enough it took me an additional three months to realize what my name was. By that point I could understand fluently enough but found it difficult to ask questions. So it was with a very heavy tong that I asked that ma- my father my first question.  
"Dad, what's my name?" I said, slowly careful to pronounce the words correctly.

What I didn't expect was his reaction. He of course burst out laughing.

I looked up at him with an expression that must have been a distraught mixture of confusion and betrayal. As it was it only made him laugh harder.

"Hikage." He said, his face still betraying his amusement as his crow eyes became more distinct and his smile more taught to hold back more laughter. "Your name is Hikage."

I blinked. Hikage meant sunshine. I excused myself in my mind at the confusion between pet names and real names, as he was fond of them, and curled up into a ball wrapping my arms around my legs and hiding my face behind my knees. It was a rather feminine name at that.

"For such a smart kid you can be unexpectedly dumb." He said fondly, more to himself than me. I glared up at him, unfortunately he turned just in time to miss my expression.

"What's Tou-san's name?" I asked, it would be better to get it out of the way now rather than latter.

"Kasumi."

Hm.

It was when I started teething that I felt it. Before it had been a dull ache in my bones, an enhancement of the feeling that something wasn't right but easily ignorable as another side effect of my overly weak immune system.

But now, as my gums began to ache I could feel the coils settle in my body becoming consistent and almost malleable. Sometimes when I closed my eyes before I followed the call of sleep I could feel it humming under my fingertips as it moved in my body in an regular pattern like a second heartbeat.

Dad was out late , I was one and a half years old and he had started working again and it was becoming a more and more common thing for him not to come home until well after the ladies from the Blue Inn brought me home, they where unconditionally insistent that I was home before night fall.

I was sitting in my bed, there where no lights on. The slam rod* was out of reach on top of the cabinet in Dad's room and I didn't like gathering the enthusiasm it would require to get it for a single candle. I pushed my hair away from my face with chubby fingers and looked down at the barest of outlines I could see as what little light reflected on the palms of my pale skin.

I closed my eyes pressing my two cupped palms together. Loosely entwining my fingers I could feel the steady humm of it under the thin skin. I breathed deeply wondering it I could move it. The thought was enough to spur it into action.

My stomach grew warm, the same way your throat does after a shot. I pushed it, persuaded it to go to my fingertips. It did though it lost most of its heat along the way as I prodded it further from my core. It seemed to stop at point where my fingertips where almost burning from the unusual heat but didn't want to move further.

I gave it an extra push, one last prod before it was like my fingers had frozen and my veins turned to ice. My eyes snapped open just in time to see a bright ball form in my hands, the light spilling from between my fingers.

Eyes wide, I opened my hands to see a ball of blue white, stuff, the size of a golf ball floating just above the skin of my palm before it seemed to begin to melt. The blue white energy for lack of a better word began to deflate like a puddle reaching out like water but much thicker in consistency.

As is stretched out it seemed to lose color becoming more and more misty loosing its ethereal glow, still remaining only millimeters away from my skin but never touching it as though something was forcing it away just that small distance. A dollop of the stuff was about the roll of the side of my hand, I twisted my left hand so that it wouldn't fall onto my sheets but a moment later it seemed unnecessary.

At the thought, the stuff, the energy, twisted itself around my hands and fingers slowly loosing volume and brightness. It moved and twirled around my hands slowly with a water like quality but the constancy of mud until it seemed to evaporate and I was left in complete darkness.  
I flopped backwards onto the bed, sleep claiming me before my head touched the pillow.

* * *

It was at age two I realized very abruptly that Kasumi was not fit to be a parent. That a man so carefree and torn by death was not suitable to mold the life of an impressionable child, but then I guess it made me all the more great full because it spared me the guild of the real child who he and Yuhi should have had.

* * *

The ladies from the Blue Inn whereby far my favorite people, not that I had met many people. I was an extremely sheltered child as far as three year olds where concerned. I could count how many people I knew by name on one hand.

Kohaku was the oldest. She, as far as I could tell, ran the Blue Inn. It would be hard to guess her age under how much makeup the woman wore and the light steps she took but she seemed at least thirty.

Mariko was by far the sweetest and nicest of the four ladies. She had strawberry blond hair that was a joy to play with. She didn't seem to mind when I suddenly felt the need to learn to braid and the only thing I could make where slightly glorified knots.

Naoko was by far the oddest. She had intense mood swings and I could almost always smell cheep bear on her breath behind her vast amounts of perfume. She would be perfectly civil one day and the next break down in tears because of a broken cup.

Ami was without exception my favorite of the four women. She was bright and cheerful, relishing (loudly) in the most mundane things. She had a passion for the shamisen and her loud if a bit brash personality transferred over to her music well.

She was the one I began to spend the most time with after she offered to teach me. I was hesitant at the time to accept. In the past I had always been somewhat tone death and music didn't come naturally to me like languages seemed to but she was the older sister I'd always dreamed of and it was the perfect opportunity to spend more time with her.

It took me longer then it should of to realize that the Blue Inn was a brothel. It was being run by four women, that should have been a large indicator in a, admit ably small, world that seemed like how I imagine Japan may have been two hundred years ago along with all its sexism.  
There where more women working at the Blue Inn then the four I knew but they didn't care for me enough to do more than glare or left as quickly as the could for the same reasons as the last.

It was odd, coming to the realization that everyday my father left me in the care of professional prostitutes after what had initially been a favor from Kohaku but had become a more permanent arrangement after I had grown so close to her as I would like to think she had to me.

"Ah Hikage-chan, just who I wanted to see." Marikonee-san said upon seeing me buried in thoughts. "Would you come to the markets with me?"

I smiled. "Of course."

Agreeing without thinking and taking the hand Mariko offered me. A second later I realized that I had never been to the markets. When I dwelled on it further I realized I'd never even left the street I lived in (what was it called?). The Blue Inn was three buildings away from my own home on the opposite side of the road.

Mariko held a loosely woven basket in her other hand and I had to run at times to catch up with her longer steps and not lose my hold on her hand. I never realized the village, town, I live in could be so big or so busy.

We stopped abruptly and I was surprised to see Mariko crouch in front of me in such a busy area.

"Do you want a piggy back ride?" She asked. I blushed but nodded and she paused to push her neat braid out of the way (my own improving handiwork) before lifting me onto her shoulders and picking up her empty basket.

It was only on her shoulders that I could see slightly above the average head of the crowd, Mariko was a rather tall woman, and saw that the town was overlooked by a massive cliff. Three faces carved into the mountain looked down on the town center shadowing the area from the suns heat. They seemed like an odd parody of Mount Rushmore or the Hokage Monument from Naruto.

My thoughts went blank for a moment.

"Sorry what was that Marikonee-chan?" I asked leaning to the side to speak into her ear. "Could you point me to Zuuko's fish stall?" She asked loudly.

"Ah, it's right over there nee-chan." I said pointing. 

* * *

*Slam rod or fire piston is a device that is used to light fires and was more or less like a reusable matchstick. If you want to find out about it I suggest you google it.

A/N: So that's a thing. I don't know why I'm writing this but recently SI fanfics have been a bit of a guilty pleasure reccently.


	2. h

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

It took me longer than I would care to admit to get over the initial shock that I had been reborn in the 'Naruto verse'. If I'm honest I'm less sure than ever that all of this is real. It's all too fantastic, and it's much easier to dismiss it as a hallucination created by my oxygen starved brain. After all, Naruto? It was a bit too cliched.

But other thoughts still nagged me at the back of my head. A little 'what if' another wondering if this was all just a hallucination (none of this is real) why would there only be three heads? Or maybe, just maybe, this is what a dream felt like.

'I'm dreaming.' I resisted the urge to say aloud as Mariko would no doubt hear. I was still on her shoulders, her basket was full of foods and other stuffs. I was lent over, my face pressed somewhat uncomfortably against her scalp and my arms entwined loosely around her neck.  
"Nee, Marikonee-chan," I said slowly, but it came out in a drawl, "do you have dreams?"

She didn't answer for a long time. The streets leading to the Blue Inn where always full of people when the sun fell but even now just past midday there where people bustling back and forth. I almost forgot about my questions under the regular sound of her footsteps and the slight movement in her upper body that lulled my own.

"Un, I have dreams." She said. I wondered what her face looked like as she said that. "When I was little I wanted to own my own restaurant. What's your dream Hikage-chan?"

I frowned at what she said. Mariko made the best food I remember ever tasting but she spoke about her dream in past tense...

I lifted my head from hers so that I could shake it. "Not those sorts of dreams Nee-chan. The sort you have while you sleep. Dreams and..." I trailed of for a second searching my limited vocabulary for the word, "nightmares."

The tension that was palatable only a minute ago eased and I felt Mariko relax.

"Of course I do." She said, I imagined her smile. "Just the other day I had a dream..."

* * *

Dad was there to pick me up before the ladies would have ushered me home, the white bandage peeking from underneath the high collar of his shirt was painfully obvious.

I stared at it for a moment before walking over to grab his hand rather then run over and jump at him like I normally would.  
Kasumi was a shinobi, a chunnin who couldn't be described as anything other than a generalist. After my birth he had retained from missions outside of the village and worked only in border patrol.

Despite the fact it was his small stipend that kept us living in the red light district I was more then happy that we were where we were.

"Tou-san, we live in Konoha right?" I asked my hand engulfed in his, they where dry and rough and covered in calluses I neved paid attention to before.

"That's right." He said sending me an bemused look.

"And Tou-san you're a Konoha-nin ne? A chunnin?" I asked again.

"That's right." He said again.

"Was Yuhi- was Kaa-san a kunoichi too?" I asked slightly quieter then my other questions.

He didn't pause before responding. "Right again. Yuhi- your Okaa-san was a fine kunoichi, one of the finest." He said.

I looked up and saw that the smile he wore was not a twisted one just a bit on the small side. I ignored the way his hand tightened around mine as we entered the house.

"Just like you?" I asked again more to myself than to him.

"Well I'm certainly not a Kunoichi." He said with a toothy grin. I snorted looking up at him. Kasumi was thin and lythe enough but he couldn't be mistaken for a woman in even the most skilled drag.

"What did Kaa-san look like?" I asked slipping my hand from his and stretching it after being in his too strong grip.

"Yuhi was a very pretty woman." Kasumi said sitting down ushering me to do the same. "You look a bit like her you know. She had pretty eyes though, they where the oddest shade of green."

I looked up at him curiously.

"Wait here a minute." He said standing ruffling my hair. "I've got a photo."

I raised my eye brows but the expression was lost on him as he had already turned away. Photos where expensive and the only times I had ever seen photos where of weddings or births, moments of joy or great change. So that was why I was so surprised when he did hand me the photo of her.

Because really she was plain. really plain.

Her skin wasn't pale like Dad's or dark like Ami's it sat between completely nondescript. Her hair was black; it was long but not overly so, it was flat and cut straight where it barely brushed her collarbones. Her eyes where really the only thing that did stand out about her, they where tilted downwards and the most odd green I'd seen in someones eyes for a moment I doubted they where natural.

She looked nothing like me.

For a moment it was difficult to see that we where even related.

I was pale, the same shade of skin as Dad; my hair was a pale grey, almost white color again the same as my dad. Kasumi kept his hair short and pulled it back into a short pony tail, mine was long, longer than Yuhi's- Naoko refused to let me cut it for some odd reason and every time I suggested it she would give me a noogie until I forgot about it. My eyes where slate black, the only thing of my father I didn't inherit- his where a light grey.

But the longer I stared at the picture, I suppose we had the same face shape, the same strong jaw and pointed chin (though it was hard to tell under my baby fat), her brow line and her slightly protruding ears.

"I don't look like Kaa-san at all." I said finally.

Kasumi just hummed non committally before taking the photo back.

"You hungry?" He asked. I nodded.

* * *

Kasumi was out late again. I was in the living room staring at the unlit candle.

I stared.

It didn't stare back.

Sighing I closed my eyes, my breathing falling into a practice regular rhythm. In my clasped hands I imagined a ball of light the size of a pee. The familiar sensation of heat shot from my core to my fingertip and when my eyes snapped open the pea sized chakra ball had already formed giving a constant blue-white glow. I placed it on top of the candle string.

The ball began to roll of the side, I reset it. It began to roll of the other side. I picked it up frowning and pierced the ball with the candle string so that it was placed where you would normally expect the flame to be.

It began to slide down the candle string until it rested on the lumpy yellow wax. I felt my eyebrow twitch in frustration.

The sound of the seals around the house unlocking was my que to grab the candle and make a dash for my room. I pinched out the glowing ball, running to my room in darkness as my dad walked through the front door.

* * *

It was when I was four years old that my dad sat me down for the talk. Not '_the talk_'; the 'do you want to be a ninja' talk. Though for me it was less of a 'do you want to be a ninja' and more you will follow the footsteps and bring honor to our family sort of talk.  
I was quiet for a long moment.

"Tou-san, what's our family name?" I asked; it had never really come up.

I think I saw his eyebrow tick in annoyance.

"Hasegawa." He said.

"Ah." It was pretty common as far as last names went.

He closed his eyes and signed before pushing his hair back with one hand catching the few strands which always refused to stay back.

"I know you're smart kid. So I know you get what I'm telling you when I say this. I am a shinobi and your mother was a shinobi." The mention of my mother left a bitter taste in my mouth. "Both of my parents where shinobi and their parents and their parents before them. And even though we might not hand a fancy bloodline or a noble name we're proud to be shinobi." He said.

I was surprised; the mention of shinobi clan's was new. We'd never even breached the subject before.  
I nodded not entirely sure what point he was trying to make. I'd always coasted along before, going with the flow of things rather then make my own way, this was hardly any different.

"Is this because you don't want me to spent time with the Nee-chans across the road anymore?" I asked.

Kasumi seemed shocked by my conclusion. "No, why would you?"

"Well this is a lecture about honor isn't it?" I said dryly. He paused.

"There are different types of honor." He said after a drawn out silence.

* * *

I'd never thought about trying to change the 'future' of the Naruto verse. Everyone in the series was so op and really in the end didn't everything turn out fine anyway. There was the indecisiveness on my part as well. I had 'died' before the series had ended. If I tried to truely affect aything then I could end up destroying the ultimate conclusion.

There was no pressure either. I could learn form my father and continue the bonds I'd formed with the ladies from the Blue Inn and become a generalist like my father. His honor was only so strong.

So that's what I did. I trusted that in the end everything would turn out ok and life continued. My father began teaching me taijutsu. It was the same odd style I saw him practice in the indoor training room. He was so insistent on training indoors, something about the seals.

He began staying out later and later and it was in those few hours unsupervised I taught myself what chakra control exercises I could remember from the manga. The leaf exercise was simple enough it was only doing other tasks while continuing to keep the leaf stuck to my forehead that I began to fail.

Tree walking was harder. I had to make sure my control was better before trying that one. Explaining away exploded trees was a lot harder than a few mulched leaves. I came to a standstill when I came to the next stage water walking.

True to its name, the land of fire was rather hot and though rain wasn't a rarity it came in bursts of weeks at a time followed by droughts lasting for months. In those rainy periods I would ruin my shoes in muddy puddles as I taught myself to walk on water.

* * *

Kohaku was the one who taught me how to read and write. I picked it up quickly to her amusement and she would have me read out the oddest works of literature I'd ever read to her on hot days filling in my many blanks in vocabulary.

Most of the stories that I read to her where love stories, romances that more often than not would end in sickeningly sweet and sappy endings. I once questioned her on her taste. She had given me a bland smile in return and told me she would excuse the lies of fantasies for being fables if it meant she could stop thinking about her own misfortunes for just a second.

I wrote out Cinderella for her. It was very much a child's story, I struggled to find the right words and had an amused Naoko help me with the pictures.

My handwriting was barely legible and the language was simple and the drawings where minimalist but Kohaku seemed to enjoy it.  
Upon receiving it she gave me a twisted smile and thanked me before pausing.

"How much did the paper cost?" She asked looking at the scroll. It was only a thin scroll and the paper was rough and scratchy causing the ink the branch out before it dried but it had been too expensive for me to cover on my own (not that I really had any money to my own name).

I blushed and shook my head. "Think of it as a early birthday present from me and Naokonee-chan."

Kohaku snorted before reading it through quickly a hand lingering on the pictures that where more abstract and cartoonish than anything I had seen here before.

"Did you draw these?" She asked.

"Naokonee-chan helped." I said with a shrug.

"Thank you." She said pulling me into a firm embrace, it was surprising coming from the delicate looking woman who was usually so hands-off. "You can call me Okaa-san if you want, the rest of the girls do."

"Hai, Okaa-san." I said my face hidden in her shoulder.

* * *

A/N: There's another thing. I would appreciate any feed back or criticism. I guess I'll state rather plainly now I've got not very much of an idea where this is going and I'm really just chasing plot bunnies but this story is going to be about Hikage in the end and a whole swag of original characters.

I figure fanfiction is a way to mess around with plots that aren't strong enough to stand up on their own so I suppose this is a bit of a heads up to say that this fic isn't just going to be a SI companion who eases the way for the main characters and replaces Sakura or hopefully not a AU cluster fuck where no one knows what is going on anymore.

So there's a little heads up for people who are looking for a story that's concerned with only the main cast.


End file.
